Northwestern opens lacrosse tournament play

They were stars on a state champion high school team who have gone on to become the leading scorers on the country's top women's college lacrosse team -- and best friends.

The friendship is not surprising because Danielle Spencer and Hilary Bowen grew up a couple of streets apart and went to the same elementary, middle and high schools in Rochester, N.Y.

Yet the two never got together until they got to high school lacrosse.

"I was in my own little world, I guess," Spencer said.

Spencer, now a Northwestern sophomore, began playing lacrosse two years after Bowen, a junior. When they met at Brighton High School, the coaches had Bowen take Spencer into the school's basement to teach her stick skills.

"Danielle has grown so much as a player," Bowen said.

"No pun intended," Spencer added.

That is an allusion to the growth spurt as a high school sophomore that made Spencer, now 6 feet 1 inch, one of the tallest players in the women's game.

The long and the short of it is the pair of attackers has 106 of the top-ranked Wildcats' 259 goals heading into this weekend's American Lacrosse Conference tournament at Evanston.

Bowen's 57 goals rank her 11th nationally in goals per game. That is no surprise because she scored 61 goals last season and was named MVP of the NCAA tournament after netting five in the final against Virginia.

Spencer, who has 49 goals and is 20th nationally, is a surprise. She was a reserve midfielder a year ago, playing just 17 of the team's 22 games and scoring 11 goals. Coach Kelly Amonte Hiller moved her permanently to attack at the end of last fall's practices.

"Danielle is so physically strong, she is hard to stop," Amonte Hiller said.

The Wildcats need a strong showing in the ALC tournament to prove the 11-7 loss at Penn was merely a bump in the road for a team that barely had avoided several Chicago-style potholes in the last month. A year ago, they cruised through the inaugural ALC tournament en route to their third straight NCAA title.

While the Wildcats are assured of an NCAA berth, they may need to win the ALC tourney to get a top-four seed and home-field advantage in the first two rounds of the NCAA tourney.

"There is a fine line of focus between good and great," Bowen said. "We have the ability to be a great team when we want to, and when we do, it's amazing. But getting that mind-set and actually doing it are different."